Oh, the Shopping!!

 It seems that every time we take a trip, there's some sort of shopping to be done. Most of the time, it's making sure that everyone has comfy shoes that fit. Sometimes it's a couple other items, like cooling neck towels the first time we ever went to a Florida theme park in July (WHAT were we thinking?!?), or new camping chairs the first time we went not-Pennsic camping in 10 years.

This trip, however, has quite the impressive - and still growing - list of things we realized we'd need or want just to make the trip a bit more enjoyable.  I had a few of these items collected over the last few months, based on what I had read or been told to get. Then, this past Monday, I spent a few hours gathering up all the clothes I thought I'd want to bring and then did the same for each family member, just to make sure we could fit it all in our suitcases. The end result was realizing we could get 10 days of clothes in a medium-checked-size (24" standard size) suitcase, each, and also that we need a few more things.

If you're planning a similar type of trip, maybe this could be a starting point for your own list! I really am interested in what you think I might've missed, too! Please comment on this post and let me know.

1. New suitcases! - We owned two that were more than 30" tall - with the wheels on them, they were too big to fit on the tour bus and train through the Chunnel. So, those were out...the next size down are two 22" and one 20" carry-ons. Based on my test packing, these are far too small for us. We had already gone through a bit of an adventure getting two 24" cases, but after this week, we decided to get two more.
2. Plug adapters - although, my husband pointed out that it might've been cheaper to just stop by any tech/drug store when we arrive and just buy those cheap USB plugs (without the cables) that you can get here. Since I literally don't know where something like that could be found in London or Disneyland (and we wouldn't have the ability to stop anywhere else in France), I figured it couldn't hurt to just bring our own.  We got two so that each "room" gets one.
3. Raincoats - our kids didn't own such a thing, until now.
4. New shoes for everyone - we discovered at Disney in March that all our shoes were pinchy. No bueno.
5. Compression socks - I had enough from my running gear to share with the kiddos, but da hubs needed a pair. These are highly recommended to avoid blood clots on long flights. I figure it can't hurt.
6. Replacement clothes - we plan to take some old, worn-out clothes that we intend to leave behind to make room for souvenirs. The new stuff will be left behind for when we return!
7. Cross-body security bag - the kind with slash-proof straps and internal lockable zippers. No need to have our passports or cameras taken by pick-pockets.
8. Laundry bags - to collect dirty clothes during the trip, and if we decide to wash anything, these will make it easier to transport the stuff to and from a laundromat. 
9. Motion Sickness bands - for the plane, trains, and boat rides. Not sure how any of our family members will handle some of these modes of transportation (although we know the eldest spawn has issues on small watercraft) so it can't hurt to have them.
10. Suitcase covers - protects the suitcases from damage, but also turns the "plain grey" into colors we can pick out on the conveyor belt at baggage claim.
11. Covid tests - a sign of the times, sadly, but needs to be done. I debated even adding this here.

When we arrive, we plan to do a quick drug-store shopping trip to stock up on toiletries. No point in packing things that are easily available there! 

How I Organized for this Trip (aka Praise for Trello)

 I regularly get lost inside my own brain.

        When I have too many things to keep track of, I forget them all.

Left brain?                                             Right brain?                                     No brain?

                    When I forget things, I worry that I forgot something important.

                                                                                And then, the anxiety attacks start.    

I don't know if this is a sign that I am a fundamentally broken human, or if this is really "normal" for us all.  

And my thoughts feel as scattered as the text in this post. 

                        Uncomfortable?

     You bet.

And then, I remember the existence of Trello. I discovered this app at work about 6 years ago. I felt like someone magical had reached into my brain, looked around, knew exactly what I needed, and then built that app. I will let you go explore their website on your own, if you are interested, but this post is to explain how I have our Europe Trip board organized, and how I intend to use it while abroad. When I get back, I'll post about how it worked and what I'd change next time.

First, there's always a brain-dump list, called "To Do". Here's how it looks as of today. 

Some cards have more details, such as the "Transportation to Arrange". I used a checklist to keep track of all the various segments of the trip that we needed to figure out how to get from A to B: 

Other cards just have a collection of info - websites, posts from Facebook, ideas from friends and family. This is for me to use to research later, and do something with.

And of course, for every "To Do" list, there needs to be a "Done" list! 

The thing I like about Trello is that it's really annoying to delete cards. This makes lazy me just push them all off to a Done list instead, so I can always go back and find them later, should I ever need to.

The "To Do" and "Done" lists will get moved to the far right of the board before departure. At least, I hope so - otherwise, we're maybe in a bit of trouble cuz that will mean not everything is done! LOL

Then, there's a General Info list. This contains important things I may need to reference quickly, like flight, hotel, reservations, and itinerary info. This list keeps changing - it started out as a bit of a planning list, with the "average temps" card, and "find transportation" cards starting there. But the lovely thing about Trello is that it makes it easy for me to keep up with my brain - and as I realize some other thing makes more sense, it's a quick drag-and-drop to change it. 

When I open these cards, they have the details at the top (in the description) and other notes I may need in the comments below. Some also have links to other helpful info, like the Terminal Map at CDG airport. This list will stay "first" and foremost, so I can get info quickly, but the cards on it will move to the bottom as we don't need them anymore.

The rest of the lists are broken down by day. I started off each list with a summary of the day, mostly taken from the Trafalgar itinerary. As I book tickets and confirm "plans" (whether they are truly reservations / set plans, or just loose ideas), the card gets added. If there's a time associated with the activity, that goes at the beginning of the card name. I use the labels to mark things that need me to still do something with them.

The idea is that the cards will get moved to the bottom of the day's list as we complete activities, and then the list itself will get moved off to the right at the end of each day.

I started this board in September of 2020. Granted, it sat empty for quite a long time...but I really started to fill it out in February of this year. I check it whenever I start to have a little panic about what still needs to get done. Lately, that's been daily. It brings me calm and, yes I'll admit it, even a little bit of happiness to look at what I have to look forward to! 

What are your favorite organization tools? Any good apps you've found for traveling? Please share!

A Mish-Mash of Thoughts

 Greetings readers!

In just 26 days, we'll be on a plane heading to London! 

The last few days have been a little quiet on the preparations front, but we are getting into crunch time now. I feel like posts will be more frequent, possibly shorter, and more focused on details in the next few days. I want to make sure that if I ever try to plan something this crazy ever again, I remember what the heck I'm doing now, in case it matters then.

Somewhat related to the topic of posts and such; my dear gang of girlfriends bought me a book for my birthday. Check this out!

The Travel Blog Planner Journal by Kaylee Berry

I don't plan to make money from this blog, so I'll be ignoring those parts of the book, but there are a ton of pages for me to take notes on where we stayed, what we saw, what I liked about it, and what advice I'd give to a friend (that's you!) wanting to visit. I hope I will have room for this in my suitcase, and that I am diligent about keeping up with it while traveling. However, even if I don't take the actual book, I intend to write down my thoughts every day and put together a good journal here when we get home. :) I'm sure it will all go by in a blur, and I don't want to forget anything!

Did you know that I have a deep love of riding carousels? Decades ago, I had a thought that it would be fun to ride carousels all over the world. I found out that there is a carousel at the base of the Eiffel Tower...and one at Sacré-Cœur...and now I'm hyped to find as many as I can in every country/town/village we visit! Would you want to see a page dedicated to all the carousels I've ridden? A random stranger said she'd like to read about them, and I'm wondering who else would! Tell me in the comments! :) 

Dining at Disney Results (Part 2)

 This is the latest, and hopefully final, entry about the results of trying to make dining reservations at Disneyland Paris. If you didn't read it yet or need a refresher, here's a link to the Dining Reservation Results Part 1.

Apparently, the tips online to "just keep randomly checking" are really spot on. That's exactly what I did up until this morning.  Whenever the thought would pop in my head, I'd open the app and click "book table" and see what came up. Downtown would appear periodically, but on dates or at times that we didn't really want. Walt's was never there. I just kept checking...and eventually I did find a decent reservation for Downtown on some random afternoon when I was bored during a work conference call and snatched that up.

I haven't actually looked again for the past week, because I spoke to my amazing Disney Travel Agent who said she would also try by calling to see what was up. She wasn't able to get us anything, either because the dates hadn't been released, or they were already booked - no one was quite sure. 🤷 Our backup plan was to see if we could get a walk-up table, and if not, just head over to the "Disney Springs" (I know that's not what it's called there) area and see who had openings. 

Then today - for reasons unknown - I decided to just book whatever was open for our final lunch day, just so we had something. We could always cancel later. And lo! and behold! Walt's was there! With times we'd even prefer! 🙌🎈🎉🎉🥳🥳

And so, here is our final reservation list...at least, for now. The way this trip has been going, I am not counting on this actually being what happens, but we'll see! LOL 

(Side note: I seriously considered hiding dates and times from this screenshot. However, I don't see anything here that could be used to steal our reservation unless you know our names, and our house will not be unoccupied while we're away so I don't think we are at risk of a break-in or other issues. Do you think I should take it down or hide anything?)